Drought emergency declared

Posted: Sunday, October 21, 2007

CUMMING - With water supplies rapidly shrinking during a drought of historic proportions, Gov. Sonny Perdue declared a state of emergency Saturday for the northern third of Georgia and asked President Bush to declare it a major disaster area.

Georgia officials warn that Lake Lanier, a 38,000-acre reservoir that supplies more than 3 million residents with water, is less than three months from depletion.

Smaller reservoirs are dropping even lower.

Perdue asked the president to exempt Georgia from complying with federal regulations that dictate the amount of water released from Georgia's reservoirs to protect federally protected mussel species downstream.

"We need to cut through the tangle of unnecessary bureaucracy to manage our resources prudently - so that in the long term, all species may have access to life-sustaining water," he said.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said Perdue's request will be reviewed.

"In the meantime, we have already begun drafting interim rules to use procedures and flexibility to address the endangered species requirements, and the Army Corps has started the process of revising the operations manual for the river basin," Perino said.

On Friday, Perdue's office asked a federal judge to force the Army Corps of Engineers to curb the amount of water it drains from Georgia reservoirs into streams in Alabama and Florida. Georgia's environmental protection director is drafting proposals for more water restrictions.

More than a billion gallons flow downstream from the north Georgia lake everyday, much of it flowing southwest to Alabama and eventually to Florida. The corps bases its water releases on two requirements: The minimum flow needed to operate a coal-fired power plant in Florida and mandates to protect two mussel species in a Florida river.

Georgia lawmakers say the law has been exploited by its neighbors as a tool to draw more water from Georgia's lakes at a time when the region is suffering from an exceptional drought.

"We've learned from this what a blunt weapon the Endangered Species Act has become," said Rep. John Linder, a Republican from Duluth. "We need to understand this lake was created not for mussels but for people."

More than a quarter of the Southeast is covered by an "exceptional" drought - the National Weather Service's worst drought category. The Atlanta area, with a population of 5 million, is smack in the middle of the affected region, which encompasses most of Tennessee, Alabama and the northern half of Georgia, as well as parts of North and South Carolina, Kentucky and Virginia.

Georgia was placed under statewide water restrictions in April that limited outdoor watering to three days a week. By May Atlanta allowed watering only on weekends, and in September environmental officials banned virtually all outdoor watering through the northern half of the state. Restaurants have been asked to serve water only at a customer's request and the governor called on Georgians to take shorter showers. Carol Couch, the state's environmental director, said it's "very likely" new limits on water usage are needed.

"This is not something we can conserve our way out of," said Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, a Republican from Gainesville, the biggest city on Lake Lanier.

The state of emergency Perdue declared Saturday affects 85 counties, more than half of the Georgia's counties. The state declaration creates an emergency team that will oversee the state's response to drought. It also could free up some state money to respond to the water woes, Couch said.

Conditions were worsened by stifling summer heat and a drier-than-normal hurricane season. State climatologist David Stooksbury said it will take months of above average rainfall to replenish the system.

Perdue added that the state has not yet formed a contingency plan in case the reservoirs run dry.